Curl in rest api

cURL¶

Lately, I've been falling in love with using curl instead of Postman for testing REST APIs in development environment. curl is a powerful tool for making HTTP requests from the command line.

1. Basic `curl` Usage¶

GET Request¶

curl -X GET "https://api.example.com/data"

If the parameters are dynamic or if you prefer to keep the URL cleaner, you can also use the --data-urlencode option:

curl -G "https://api.example.com/data" \
    --data-urlencode "param1=value1" \
    --data-urlencode "param2=value2"

POST Request¶

curl -X POST https://api.example.com/data -d "param1=value1&param2=value2"

2. Common Options¶

URL Parameters¶

You can include query parameters directly in the URL:

curl "https://api.example.com/data?param1=value1&param2=value2"

Headers¶

Add headers using the -H option:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer token" -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://api.example.com/data

Data¶

Send data using -d as application/x-www-form-urlencoded:

curl -X POST https://api.example.com/data -d "param1=value1&param2=value2"

For JSON data, use:

curl -X POST https://api.example.com/data -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"param1":"value1", "param2":"value2"}'

File Upload¶

Use the -F option to upload files:

curl -F "file=@/path/to/file" https://api.example.com/upload

Authentication¶

Basic Authentication:

curl -u username:password https://api.example.com/data

Bearer Token:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer token" https://api.example.com/data

3. Handling Responses¶

Displaying Response Headers¶

curl -I https://api.example.com/data

Saving Response to a File¶

curl https://api.example.com/data -o output.json

Including Headers in the Output¶

curl -i https://api.example.com/data

4. Advanced Usage¶

Multiple Headers¶

curl -H "Header1: value1" -H "Header2: value2" https://api.example.com/data

Verbose Output¶

Useful for debugging:

curl -v https://api.example.com/data

Follow Redirects¶

curl -L https://api.example.com/redirect

Timeout¶

Set a maximum time allowed for the transfer:

curl --max-time 30 https://api.example.com/data

5. Using `curl` with Authentication¶

Bearer Token¶

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" https://api.example.com/data